Humans Nutrition

The above analysis dealt with cereal crops taken together. Among the cereals, Asian Region has recorded the most remarkable crop performance in regard to wheat. Production of this crop in the Asian Region had increased annually from 59 million tons to 106.8 million tons during  the period 1971-81. It implied a growth rate of 6%. In regard to coarse grains,the level of production has move  up from 95 million tons to 126 million tons ,registering a growth rate of 2.9% per annum. In regard to rice paddy, the level of production has moved up from 282 million tons to 357 million tons , implying a growth rate of 2.4%

Intercountry performance in cereal production

While the cereal production performance of the Asian Region as a whole from 1971

To 1981  has been encouraging, there is no room for complacency as the individual countries performances are remarkably uneven. A statement indicating the cereal production and growth rate of production for 1971 to 1981 and rate of growth of population between 1970 and 1980  for the 20 Asian countries is given in Table1. It will be seen that out of 20 countries in the region, one (Maldives) does not produce cereals. The remaining 19 broadly fall into the following four categories according to their cereal prodution growth rates: 1)4 countries whice recorded a growth rate of 4% or higher 2) 4 countries whice recorded a growth rate 3-4% 3) 7 countries whice recorded a growth rate below 2%. It will further be seen that out of the 19 cereal-producing countries of the Asian Region , cereal poduction growth rates exceeded population growth rates in 10. In the remaining nine countries, the population growth rate of cereal production. Of these nine countries, six are classified as food-deficit  low-income countries.